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墨書 Inktalez
The two characters written above were none other than "Taishan," and I immediately realized what the child was wearing under his coat: it was the summer short-sleeved uniform of Taishan Academy. I remembered when I was in school, we were required to wear uniforms, so we would put on our own jackets over the summer uniforms, which counted as wearing the school uniform to class.
It seemed this boy was doing the same thing. However, that raised a problem. Previously, the School Leader had informed us that they had ensured safety measures in this regard; if a child's parents did not pick them up, they would absolutely not be allowed to leave. Yet now, here lay a child from Taishan Academy, dead.
I spoke to the two individuals, "This child is also from Taishan Academy."
Gu Chen remarked, "Another one from Taishan Academy. There are quite a few schools in this town; why does the murderer specifically target students from Taishan Academy? And each time in such a brutal manner—does the murderer have a grudge against Taishan Academy?"
The two of them placed the child's body in the back seat.
I looked at them and said, "From the murderer's actions, it seems that this murderer truly has a vendetta against Taishan Academy. Now two people are dead, and one named Hu Ningning has been captured—all of them are from Taishan Academy."
After securing the body, Gu Chen drove while Chen Bo, despite having been a police officer for twenty years, seemed to have rarely encountered such bodies, especially in this condition. He sat in the passenger seat while I took my place next to the corpse, which was still lying face down with its head facing me.
Gu Chen glanced back and then spoke up, "So what's going on with Gu Hui? Is it related to this case? The murderer surely doesn't know when Gu Hui will come out, and Gu Hui wouldn't go out with a stranger."
From Gu Chen's words, it was clear he was very concerned about this matter. Naturally, he would be; Gu Hui was his relative. However, based on the current situation, it seemed these two incidents were not committed by the same person. The circumstances surrounding Gu Hui's death suggested it resembled an accidental death more than anything else.
Or perhaps it was homicide, but the murderer cleverly staged the scene to look like an accidental death.
Yet whether it was Li Jun or this unnamed boy before us, it was evident that both bodies had suffered severe abuse. Li Jun had fifty-two wounds on his body from torture, while this child bore dozens of fishhooks—just imagining that scene made me feel uncomfortable all over.
Compared to these two children, Gu Hui's death could be considered a stroke of luck amidst misfortune. From this perspective, it seemed likely that these two cases were not committed by the same person but were seamlessly connected. Teacher Gao's death appeared to be a suicide and seemed unrelated to this murderer.
I said to Gu Chen, "Based on what we know so far, we cannot draw any conclusions. In my view, there may be some connection between the two cases, but it certainly won't be significant. However, as we investigate further, I believe we'll uncover what really happened."
Gu Chen nodded and drove us toward the City Bureau.
The corpse lay beside me as I looked at the child's body; I couldn't quite describe how I felt. This body was truly distressing to behold. Moreover, it was clear that the murderer had tampered with it; given all those hooks, there shouldn't have been so little blood left.
It is easy to imagine how bloody and terrifying the scene would have been if the Murderer had not cleaned up the body.
We drove in silence to the police station.
When Wang Fa-Yi saw the body, his mouth dropped open as if he could fit an entire cow inside.
"Let's get it over with," Wang Fa-Yi said as he followed us to the Autopsy Room. "I thought I would go through life without seeing so many bodies..."
After laying the body flat on the autopsy table, Wang Fa-Yi gently used scissors to cut away the clothing. Given the state of the body, it was clear that removing the clothes normally was impossible. While Wang Fa-Yi worked on undressing the body, I took a photo of its face and sent it to Gu Chen, asking him to forward it to Sun Qingqing to see if this student was from her class.
Once I finished that task, Wang Fa-Yi had already cut open the boy's clothes.
Some of the fabric fibers had been embedded in the flesh by Fishhooks, making them impossible to remove without extracting each Fishhook first.
Wang Fa-Yi remarked, "The difficulty of these recent autopsies is greater than all the ones I've done in my first half of life combined."
"How long will this take?" I asked.
"About three or four hours; it won't be quick," Wang Fa-Yi replied helplessly.
Performing an autopsy on this body was indeed challenging. Due to the Fishhooks, we couldn't lay the body flat; it had to remain face down. Wang Fa-Yi began carefully using tweezers to extract each Fishhook from the body. Despite his caution, some bits of flesh inevitably came out with each hook.
Fortunately, after death, the blood had coagulated, so only a small amount flowed out.
Wang Fa-Yi wore a serious expression, deeply focused on his work, not uttering a single word. We stood by quietly watching, hardly daring to breathe. Like an engineer working on a delicate project, when Wang Fa-Yi finally removed the last hook, everyone let out a sigh of relief.
At that moment, darkness enveloped us.
Wang Fa-Yi let out a heavy sigh and said, "I just calculated silently. There are a total of sixty-eight Fishhooks on the child, densely distributed across the back, limbs, and two near the neck and spine. From the traces of these wounds, it is clear that they were inflicted while the child was Alive, as there are signs of bleeding and swelling."
After a pause, Wang Fa-Yi continued, "Some of these hooks only pierced the skin, while others penetrated into the fat and Muscle."
I looked at Wang Fa-Yi and said, "This Murderer clearly does not have a deep understanding of the human body. From the previous examination of Li Jun's corpse, if the Murderer had knowledge of human anatomy, they would not have tortured Li Jun to death in such a brutal manner. This person seems to be from a middle-class background with decent economic conditions but lacks knowledge about the human body."
I thought for a moment and added, "This person is likely not involved in medicine; otherwise, they would understand human structure. Such ingrained habits cannot be changed overnight. Additionally, this person probably has their own independent house, which is relatively far from neighbors."
At that moment, Wang Fa-Yi was still performing the autopsy. Fortunately, the subsequent procedures were standard Autopsy practices and did not require Wang Fa-Yi to be overly cautious. For someone with twenty years of experience in Forensics, he could probably conduct this Autopsy with his eyes closed.
I continued, "This person's age should be around thirty."
I closed my eyes, contemplating what kind of person this Murderer might be.
"The Murderer is likely married and has a child. However, right now he is alone; his wife and child do not live with him. The Murderer is usually serious and prefers to stay home alone without doing much. His lifestyle is irregular, and his cooking is terrible."
As I delved deeper into my thoughts, I felt an increasing pain in my head. I pressed my hand against my Temple and continued, "He harbors a deep hatred for these children."
However, as I tried to think further, the pain in my head became unbearable, making it impossible for me to continue.
Seeing my distress, Chen Bo came over and patted my shoulder. He asked with concern, "What's wrong?"
Gu Chen glanced at me and confirmed that I had not entered deep profiling before saying, "Criminal Profiling."
Chen Bo looked surprised and asked, "Is that the method where one immerses themselves into the mindset of a Criminal? That kind of Criminal Profiling?"
I nodded and replied, "Exactly. Criminal Profiling was proposed by a psychiatrist. This method has not yet been recognized in China. To be honest, not everyone can do it. Every time I immerse myself in it, it tends to induce a split in my psyche, which is why I rarely engage in it."
I said, "If it weren't for the fact that this case might be related to the Wu Zui gang, I wouldn't be so eager to find the murderer."
"The Wu Zui Gang?" Chen Bo asked. "What is that?"
I slowly replied, "A criminal organization."
I shook my head, and at that moment, Wang Fa-Yi said, "Criminal profiling, huh? I think you've gone through a lot of criminal profiling before and haven't seen a psychologist afterward, which has led to this condition. Generally, people like this have a high chance of developing mental illness."
I replied, "At that time in that city, no one knew about this matter."
"Well then, what about the autopsy?" I asked.
Wang Fa-Yi looked at me seriously and said, "After those fishhooks were removed, I was finally able to turn the body over. From the front view, there are no visible wounds. The main injuries are concentrated on the back, and judging by the amount of blood loss from the back, aside from extreme pain, there aren't any particularly fatal wounds."
"No fatal wounds on the back?" I asked. "But there are so many scars without any fatal injuries?"
Wang Fa-Yi nodded and said, "Believe it or not, most of these hooks are not deep; they mostly just penetrated the skin. The remaining ones did pierce into the fat and muscle but only severed some capillaries and such. The depth isn't significant, and the blood loss isn't very large. Until we conduct a thorough autopsy, I still don't know what the exact cause of death is."
"However,"
Wang Fa-Yi pointed to the child's mouth and said, "I do have one finding; look here..."
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